To The States: Reflections On Jones v. Mississippi

After banning mandatory LWOP sentences for youth and holding (in two separate cases) that such sentences may be imposed after individualized sentencing review only on the “rare” incorrigible offender, the U.S. Supreme Court took a step backward in Jones v. Mississippi. In Jones, the Court held that the only constitutional requirement before children are sentenced to LWOP is judicial discretion, and that courts need not make any specific findings before imposing the most severe sentence possible. Asking for very little and receiving even less underscores the need for a strategic realignment, not just for juvenile sentencing cases specifically but for Eighth Amendment cases more generally. Many advocates have already persuaded state courts to limit juvenile life without parole under state constitutional analogues to the Eighth Amendment. Indeed, with a flurry of state supreme court litigation and renewed scholarly interest in state constitutions that restrict extreme criminal punishments, the center of innovation is already beginning to shift from the federal courts to their state counterparts — both for juvenile life without parole and for criminal punishment more broadly.